Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It can transport you back to a place and time, or make you feel a certain age, or a certain mood. It can also be blinding to change and indifference.

I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember, and as we near the dawn of a new generation of gaming, it's only natural to want to look back on generations past, with nostalgia making an appearance here and there.

One step into my home and you and I would agree that I'm somewhat of a die-hard Square-Enix fan. (Perhaps more Squaresoft than Square-Enix, but that's neither here nor there.) I own roughly every title they released on the PlayStation 1, and own multiple international versions of several of their titles across three generations. Add on all of the collectibles, figures, posters, wall scrolls, soundtracks, and general "swag," and...you get the picture.

The answer actually couldn't be more simple; I stick with Square because they mean so much to my childhood and a majority of my adult life. The very fabric of my being was built upon Square's stories, so naturally, it literally crushes me to even think of turning my back on a company that has molded me into the person I am today, who lives and breathes the video game industry with an undying passion.

Simply put: nostalgia has gotten the best of me. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Sure, video games have changed a lot since the old days, and we gamers have gotten pretty spoiled; we want ultra-realistic graphics, cinematic gameplay, and complex multiplayer.

And to much backlash, Square-Enix tries to cater to this. At the end of the day, though, do any of these things really matter? Is it not enough to just be a form of entertainment and escapism?

It's this sort of backlash that evidently points out the negative side of nostalgia -- it can literally hold us back.

To succeed in this industry, it's important for developers to move forward with the times. For Square, it might not be necessary to figuratively re-write the entire playbook, but in order to stay relevant, it's a part of business.

By constantly living in the past and refusing to give the "new" a chance, we're not only hurting ourselves as gamers, but the people who live to create these experiences for us.

Now granted, I still generally buy what appeals to me, just like anybody else, and I'm pretty annoyed with many of the decisions that Square-Enix has been making lately, but I have faith that they'll turn around. I have hope that this next generation will allow them to re-establish themselves as the revered developer they once were and remind us all -- or at least myself -- of why we loved them in the first place. But we need to give them the chance to do so.

With all of the negative press going around about the next generation of gaming making some big changes concerning social media, internet connectivity, DRM, etc., it's easy to forget where we came from. We all became gamers because something or someone introduced us to an experience that connected with us on a deeper, more personal level than some TV show or summer blockbuster. It made us want to live through more of those experiences and participate in the magical moments on our television screens or in the arcade.

And that's the thing with video games -- they'll always keep me coming back, regardless of what gimmicks or technological advancements they may have. It's not a matter of Xbox vs. PlayStation; "brand loyalty" isn't a thing to me. It's a matter of buying experiences that you will love and enjoy. It doesn't have to be easier; I don't need Kinect to turn my Xbox on, but I do have to have a reason to turn it on -- and for me, those reasons are video games.

At the end of the day, a game is a game.

I don't blame Square-Enix for their lack of focus on its core audience and people like me. The western market is huge, and appealing to it -- as well as maintaining Japanese influence -- is undoubtedly tough to do. We might not ever see the light of a Final Fantasy VII remake, but in all honesty, that's okay. As long as Square-Enix gives me reason to fight and save the world, I'm forever a fan -- just keep those god-awful micro-transactions away from me.

What is "nostalgia" for you? What made you a gamer? Let me know, and while you're at it, here's my epitome of nostalgia.

Chris Rodriguez is a gamer, writer, and sucker for JRPGs. He writes for ingloriousgamer.com, and you can follow his love for chicken strips and pictures of his cat on Twitter @binarybox.

Perhaps I'm not alone in this -- and it might not even be a "problem" --but it had occurred to me while I was playing Tomb Raider that I noticed something about myself. You see, I've finished the game with a completion of 100%. Throughout the game, I made it my mission to collect every single "collectible" -- relics, documents, GPS caches, etc.

In the midst of all of this "collecting," I started thinking about our nature as humans to want to collect things. Why do we do it? Is it absolutely necessary to collect everything? It's strange, because I worked pretty hard to obtain all of those pesky challenge items, and now, the game has been sitting there untouched for the last 3 or 4 days.

In the grand scheme of things, does this even matter? Aside from seeing 100% on your screen, which was great to see upon completion, is there any value to this? After all, it only took about 15 minutes after finishing Tomb Raider before the excitement wore off.

Here's a different scenario: You have 4/4 first aid kits -- you're unable to carry anymore. Your health is at a solid, well-rounded 95%. Henchmen and evil Nazis wouldn't dare mess with you, because you're a badass; a survivor. You've slayed hundreds of these guys, and even if they presented their evil forces to you in waves, you'd lay waste to them like nobody's business.

But then, you're walking along, and you get hit; not with a bullet, but a slight moment of weakness. You've come across another healthpack in the field.
What do you do?

If you're like me, you use an entire kit to restore that measly 5% and pick up the one in the field -- just to make sure this kit that you didn't really need didn't go wasted!

WHY?! Was it crucial that I pick that up? Would it have really been so bad if I just skipped over it and never looked back? Is this something we all do, or is there something deeper going on here?

How about Skyrim? Are you the type to carefully skim through corpses and pick what you need, or do you grab everything -- random bowls and silverware included?

What started as my self-obsession with this necessity to have everything ends up going much deeper when I look at the bigger picture.
Take music, for example. Many people who like a song by a certain artist, will download the song, throw it on their phone or MP3 player and never think twice about it. I, on the other hand, make sure to get the entire album, even if I never really listen to the whole thing, or have that big of an interest in the artist. And don't even get me started on my iTunes player. If the music is mislabeled, or if there is missing album artwork, you just might see me go into a rage-filled organizing frenzy.

When I was a kid, I used to collect baseball cards. It wasn't for trading or anything like that -- seeing as I didn't know any other kids that collected them -- but more or less to increase the odds of ripping open a pack and finding one of my favorite players.
Fast forward 20 years, and aside from a signed Mark McGwire baseball that's worth nothing, I have a stack of maybe 15 or 20 cards that have some decent value. I might sell them, and I might not. As for the remaining 3000 or so? They're neatly organized by year, position, and name amongst a few binders.

I did this.

When I was 8.

Now, I've looked into the psychological aspects of collecting, and to no surprise of my own, it shares similarities with obsessive-compulsive behavior; even worse, it could possibly be linked to compulsive hoarding. I'm sure most of us have seen the types of behaviors on those television shows, and this is clearly not the same thing. But there are similarities!

Sure, I hunt trophies and objects in games, but what if someday I'm that dude whose garage looks like an overstuffed thrift store full of romance novels, old dishes, and trashed magazines from 1974?

The horror!

I don't know where I'm going with this, as it's almost 3 AM and my bed is calling my name. But ultimately, I think it all comes down to accomplishment, whether it be a platinum trophy or completing a set of stamps. It's nice to be able to sit back and show off your achievements amongst your peers and say, "I did this, and you know what? I did it better than you did," which isn't too far from what I actually said to a friend of mine when I had 100% completed Far Cry 3.

And do you know what he said?

"Oh, word."

In the end, does anybody really give a shit?

Either way, what do you think? Are any of you out there like this? If you're a "trophy hunter" or "achievement whore," why do you do it?

This rambling has gone on long enough. I'm going to go hit the hay and get some time in with Pokemon White 2.